Almost 33 weeks...slowly getting there

Okay so the blog has been a little bit slow lately. Well it was finals week for me last week and I have a ton of stuff I am trying to get done at work! My last day at work is Jan 26th and I am in a bit of a rush trying to get my research to a point where they can take it out to the plant and use it if they need to.
Lyle's also been busy trying finish up the electrical in the basement and working of course. He's been taking care of most of the stuff for our business right now so that's been keeping him busy. He's also been doing a lot more of the house work and just in general helping me out. I am surprised he doesn't run the other way when he hears me whine "Lyle I dropped the (insert object here) can you get it for me?" or "Lyle I can't reach the (insert a different object here) can you come get it down for me?" The funniest thing he's helped me do was cut my toenails. I just couldn't quite reach them; he did a good job :-)

Just had my 32 week doctor's appt yesterday (although I am actually 33 weeks on Thurs.) Everything is going well. My blood pressure is low 110/70; which is great! Usually they get really worried about pre-eclampsia (sp?) and toxemia if your blood pressure starts to increase. Keegan's heartbeat is right at 140 bpm which is right in the center of the acceptable range. I've been having a few strange things come up. I've got a funny rash on my legs; which according to the doctor is a heat rash and I can't do anything about it. It will go away after I have Keegan and it isn't really bothering me; it just looks funny. I've also had a couple bad episodes of ankle swelling; which have been remedied by lifting my feet up (duh). Lastly I occasionally get very painful sharp pains in my lower belly which are supposedly round ligament pain from Keegan putting all of his weight on my belly :-) Don't get these too often though and doctor says you can't really do anything about it except for wear a maternity support belt to help. I now have three different versions of maternity support belts at home. I wouldn't want to do anything in moderation... One of them is two small now and one is darn uncomfortable, but the third one seems to be working out well :-)

Keegan has been staying very active. Sometimes I think he's trying to bust his way out through my belly. He's started waking me up a lot at night and has a new habit of kicking me in the ribs that I am not very fond of! Other than that it is still good to know that he is soooo active. I was leaning against Lyle the other night and Keegan whopped me a good one and Lyle jumped exclaiming "Keegan just kicked me!". I mumbled something to the effect of "Yeah, you should be on this end..."

I can definitely say that although the pregnancy experience has been interesting I am getting very tired of it. I am tired of not being able to bend over, of running out of breath after walking 1/2 a flight of stairs, and of all the little belly pains. Also tired of just being tired in general; sometimes I feel like I am taking laziness to a new art. At work I save up everything I need to do at the other end of the lab until I have to go to the bathroom because then I only have to walk that direction once. I am either becoming very efficient or very lazy...

We are mostly ready for Christmas. I am looking forward to taking all of next week off of work. I plan to clean out all of the closets, drawers, etc that I haven't tackled yet. I also plan to spend lots of time playing video games, sleeping, and playing with the cats and dog.

Other than that I am glad that my pregnancy has been going so well. Really I don't have anything to complain about. It's been great that everyone's so excited for us and great that both family, friends, and work have been so supportive and helpful! Just one miscellaneous fact; if Keegan was born today there is a 90% chance his lungs would be developed enough that he could support himself without intensive care. Keegan would also have over a 98% chance of survival; almost as high as a full-term infant. So that's great; although I really want him to stay put for at least another 4 weeks :-)

30 weeks and counting...

Well just had my 30 week doctors appt yesterday. Everything went just fine. I am measuring exactly 30cm, baby's heartbeat was 150 bpm, so far so good. The appt was actually kind of boring in its simplicity. Lyle joined me this time; which I appreciated. Although it was a pretty boring appt; which I should be grateful for :-)
We put up the 30 week belly pics last night; so you can go to our pictures to see those. I continue to grow in size.
I have my last baby shower this Friday. That should be exciting; it is being thrown by people at my work. It's exciting both because I like getting presents :-) and because after this I can go and get the rest of the baby stuff that we need! I haven't been buying much baby stuff but after Friday time to get baby stuff galore! (I can hear Lyle sighing from here...)
Not much baby stuff going on this week (besides the above of course). I got my last programming assignment so I will be working on that most of this week and then next week I have my last final for the semester. Pretty exciting stuff.
Christmas shopping is complete; so we just need to get those Christmas cards filled out and then sent next week.
I guess other than that not much going on.

29 weeks?! Kick, Elbow, Nudge

I want to second Lyle's comment about the great job mom and dad did with throwing the shower weekend before last. It went great. Thanks to everyone who could make it and thanks for all of the great presents!

As Lyle also mentioned the doctor's appt for 28 weeks went well. Blood pressure, blood sugar, baby heart rate were all perfect. I finally found out what the pinching in my upper abdomen was about. Ends up one of the nerves that runs from your abdomen up can run through your ribs. When that happens (and you are pregnant) your abdomen will stretch that nerve against your ribs causing a pinching or burning pain on one side. It's harmless and there's not a darn thing they can do about it. So basically I have to deal with it :-) So far I've been able to figure out that it hurts more in some positions than others; so it's been okay as long as I am careful.

I am constantly amazed at how big my abdomen can get. It just gets bigger and bigger. This incited a shopping trip to the MOA on Friday to Old Navy. They had maternity stuff on sale and I now have several bigger shirts. You know they say to buy maternity clothes in your prematernity size?? Well there is not a medium maternity shirt in existence that covers the bottom of my belly. So on to large it is. At least I got to buy more clothes :-)

I have actually been feeling a lot better lately. I think some of it is because I am not worried about the aches and pains I was having after talking to the doctor. The other thing is that if Keegan were born today he would have a very good change of living a normal life; after some time in intensive care. I told him yesterday it would be nice if he stayed put for a couple more months though.

Keegan has also started kicking/elbowing/headbutting with great gusto. Sometimes he hits me so hard it makes me jump a bit. This has created a great new pastime where I can watch my stomach as it undulates back and forth. It's a bit weird and alien-like, but neat all the same. I've got to imagine that both Lyle and mom and dad are sick of me going..."oh, did you see that" or "oh, he's kicking again". You would think the novelty would wear off with time but it's still exciting! Yesterday morning Keegan was very quiet and it worried me a bit; but late afternoon he started moving a ton again. Then to make up for the morning he was very active all night. I think it's the first night where his movements have kept my up a good portion of the night. At least he is moving!

Anyway, I have a meeting to go to so I am going to end this post. Doctor's appt every two weeks now; so that should be interesting.

Another shower! more gifts!!

I want to thank anyone reading this for your baby shower gifts! We really appreciate the gifts that we have received, and we have gotten quite a few gifts. We had our second baby shower Sunday at the In-laws house, and they did a fabulous job of throwing a party! This one was for family as we decided that it never seems to work out great when mixing family with friends. We did it a couple of times, and found that we didn't have enough time to talk to both sets of people, and since they for the most part stayed separate, it didn't really make sense. Now we can look forward to a nice relaxing week, that will be short because of Thanksgiving. Also I can look forward to catching my Cornchukers play on Friday! They should be the pants off of Colorado, but you never know what might happen.

Other than all the shower stuff that went on, we had the 28 week appointment this week, which I was sadly unable to attend. I had a different doctor's appointment that I needed to go to. Everything tested out fine for the appointment. They checked the glucose level and it was normal, so no diabetes from pregnancy on this one, at least not thus far. Also the belly is now 29 centimeters from pelvic bone to belly button. Supposedly the length (in centimeters) is suppose to be in line with the weeks of pregnancy. Ever wonder how that kind of stuff turns out to be true? I sure do. Sadly I digress. So everything with the pregnancy is turning out good at this point. I have heard some grumbling about the weight, and the joint issues that are going along with the whole thing, but there is nothing that can be done about that. Amazingly you have to gain weight while pregnant... who would have guessed ;).

That is about all that is happening right now. We are looking forward to meeting Keagan when he finally decides to grace us with his presence, but sadly that is not suppose to happen for another couple of months. Thanksgiving and Christmas here we come ;).

Have a Happy Thanksgiving Y'all

I'm babied out

After this weekend I am just plain babied out! We had birthing preparation class Fri night for 3 hrs and then Sat for 8 hrs. We went from there to Michelle's baby shower. Then on Sunday we had a baby shower with our friends for Lyle and I!

Class went very well. The teacher was great; she had the perfect mix of a good sense of humor, great experience, and provided emotional as well as technical knowledge. She touched on alternative methods of help for labor and birthing as well as traditional methods without pushing her opinion of either on the group. It was a great class. My favorite part was practicing the relaxation methods; I also liked when they had the spouses practice hand/back massage for assistance during labor. My least favorite part was watching the 6-7 birthing videos we watched. Seeing those women in so much pain with their husbands trying to help them was just stressful. I am not sure why; at least I wasn't the only woman upset by it. A few of the women cried through those parts of the video. Luckily we did the relaxation exercises after watching the videos so that helped. The amount of information was staggering and very overwhelming. Lyle and I left the class a bit wide-eyed and very tired.

A couple other good things about the class is that we toured the birth center and it is very nice. Lyle was ecstatic that they have wireless in the delivery room :-) Also I am not absolutely terrified of the possibility of needing a C-section anymore. I was really worried that they cut through your stomach muscles for that, but they don't. Weird the things that bother you.

Michelle's baby shower was fun. Liam was very cute and very quiet the whole time we were there. Cate threw a great baby shower for Lyle and I . We had fun with the games. We played a game where we had 80's TV or movie characters on our backs. This was a great ice breaker game for the people that didn't know each other that well. Also made me wish I had actually watched some TV back in the 80's :-) The food was great and Lyle and I got lots of awesome gifts for Keegan. Thanks to everyone that attended!

Lyle has been really great about tolerating my slowness and just in general laziness (I suppose I should just say tiredness). He has also been watching out for me because I seem to be operating on about half a brain most of the time. I do things like start water boiling and then leave; put my car keys strange places; and struggle to unlock the door getting back into the house. Not to mention the general clumsiness. I drop everything; which is horrible because then I have to reach all the way down to the floor to pick it up. A lot of times I drop things and then stare at Lyle, in what I hope is a helpless and pleading way, until he picks it up for me :-)

As for Keegan. I can feel him a bit better everyday. In one of my meetings yesterday Keegan and I played a game. I would push on my stomach and he would kick back at me. It really made the meeting go quit a bit faster. Last night a bit of weirdness happened where something was stabbing me in the abdomen. I reached down to rub it and hit something very boney that quickly moved when I pushed on it. I swear is had to be Keegan's heel or something. That was just creepy. I mean I know I've been feeling him moving but to feel body parts through my stomach is just darn strange. So things continue to be interesting.

Well, that's it for me. I have to finish up my lunch and then get back to work. Not sure when Lyle is going to do another entry...I think he must be taking a blog vacation for a couple weeks here...

Classes...again

I have a few minutes here before I need to be somewhere else so I thought I would write a quick note.

Tonight and all day tomorrow; Lyle and I have birthing preparation class. This is the grandaddy of all classes and is *the* class that everyone is supposed to go through. I pulled out the registration sheet just to make sure that we knew when we had to get there etc, etc. Ends up there are a few items we need to bring with us. We need to bring two pillows and either an exercise mat or a couple of blankets. Lyle and I looked at each other quizzically and wondered; exactly what would we be doing in this class. Lyle said "what type of blankets?" I said "To me this means I will be on the floor at some point so I suggest thick blankets." And that was that. So I am excited to see how this class goes. Maybe a little bit nervous too; I have these strange visions of us doing pregnant crabwalk races across the classroom as part of the bonding for this class.

As for general stuff; the baby shower that Cate is throwing for us and our friends is on Sun and I am excited about that. Michelle and Nick are having their baby shower tomorrow night; so we will definitely be busy this weekend!

As for me...I have been having good pregnancy days and bad ones. Like last night I slept great and feel great this morning. Night before last I hardly slept a wink and felt like hell warmed over when I got up. I was sore, had a headache, and was just in general cranky. So far the biggest problems I've been having is sore hip joints (of and on) and this pinching in my upper abdomen. The pinching seems to come on if I eat too much; so I've been working on moderating my meal sizes. I will take to the doctor about it in a week when I go in again. Other than that Keegan has been very active. Sometimes he regularly kicks up a storm; other times it's just little pokes and prods. Funny thing is that rather than feeling just movement in my very lowest abdomen; I am started to feel movement up higher too! Sometimes both at the same time. Anyway, sometimes I just like to go lay down and feel him moving around. Lyle is finally getting used to this :-) The first couple of times he walked into the bedroom and was like "what are you doing?" I don't think he is used to me sitting still for no reason. I have been finding it's very nice to just sit sometimes....

Ah well more about class after we go through it!

Another class and car seats

We had another class this weekend. It was called "All about babies". It was a very long class that went from 9-1:30 on Saturday. Lyle and I were thinking this would cover things like how to put a diaper on a baby, how often to bathe a baby, illnesses a baby might have, feeding...stuff like that. Well ends up the first two on the list were covered in excruiciating detail. In fact I think that we spent around an hour learning to bathe the baby. This covered really helpful things like "clean the baby's face with the washcloth before you clean off their butt" and "don't submerge the baby fully under water". With numerous disclaimers by the RN teaching that if your doctor tells you to do otherwise you should always follow that advice.

The other 3 hrs of the class was spend on discussing household safety and interaction with your child. For safety this included things like "don't leave the baby alone balanced on top of the changing table", "don't leave the child alone in the bathroom with the toilet open" (drowning hazard), and "don't leave live electrical wires within the child's reach". Very helpful let me tell you; as if any individual with slight common sense couldn't figure this out.

The interaction portion of the class talked about positive reinforcement for your child. So further down the road if child tries to help put away the dishes, you should always thank them and not fix what they do; even if they put the tupperware on the bottom of the dishwasher. This was not popular with Lyle who has a thing for dishwasher efficiency. He spoke up about this; saying in a much more polite way that this was just plain silly. He thought you should thank the child and then show them how to do it right. This led to the teacher being a bit cranky with us. Next came discussion of what would you do if the child helped fold the towels and not only folded them wrong but put them away incorrectly. The teacher said Lyle would have a problem with this. To which Lyle replied "Nope, but my wife would". To which the teacher asked me "what would you do Karissa?" I said I would refold the towels and resort them. I like my towels in color order and neatly stacked. Wow, wrong answer there.... After this she began to discuss how your house should look like a kid has taken over; this is healthy. For example she personally is a Gma and has 3 washbaskets full of toys all over her living room. Which led Lyle and I to discuss (quietly amoungst ourselves) how maybe she should invest in some sort of toy storage system like the cute toy bin organizer we built in the baby's room...

Okay enough about this; as you can see the class was *very* educational (insert sarcasm here) and we were definitely disappointed. Next weekend we have birthing class and we hope that class will actually involve some sort of solid factual basis.

The only other thing that this class brought up was car seat safety. We found out the last car seat safety session of the year in Nov. 8th. So on Sunday we worked on assembling the travel system that Gma and Gpa R kindly bought us. It really wasn't that tough. Although we came to a solid understanding of why you don't uninstall the carseat base once it's installed. The base is not an easy thing to install. So now I am driving around with a car seat base in my car. I guess it's something to get used to. The travel system itself went together very easy and should be great to use. The thing is very sturdy and looks like it could "offroad" pretty darn well. The infant carrier is awesome but pretty darn heavy. I know my girlfriends had mentioned a great increase in upper body strength while carrying around an infant carrier; I now understand why. So Lyle and I wanted to put a shout out saying "thank you" to Gma and Gpa R for the wonderful travel system. It's awesome!

Party!!!

We had our normal Halloween party over the weekend. Everything came out pretty good! I will have to see what pictures I got and put some up on the pictures site, or maybe here. Either way everyone who came did dress up which we really appreciate! Well we did have one exception, but since he is only 6 weeks or so old, I guess I can't blame him for not dressing up ;). That would have to be Coy, which is one of the old co-workers kid that was born not long ago. It is nice to hear how things are going with them, since I know that I will be facing the same things very soon. After seeing the father in action, I can only guess that little Keagan is going to be a little on the time consuming side, but that is all good. Who needs to play video games anyway right?!?! :(. Speaking of video games, we did get a little downtime yesterday and were able to play some Champions of Norrath. I really do like that game, though we have played it through a couple of times, it just never seems to get to old to me.

So now that we stuffed ourselves with all kinds of halloween food over the weekend, it is time to get back to work and do something with our lives I guess. So I should get back to doing some real work now before they find out that I don't do as much as I really should ;).

Breastfeeding, to Snip or not to Snip, and Party Baby

Okay well it's been a while but I've been busy. I've had a large programming assignment that is due on Sunday and I've been trying to get it done before our Halloween party this Saturday. I think I am finally done!

It's been a pretty exciting couple of weeks. We had breastfeeding class and that was interesting. Lots of information. Throughout most of the class all I could think was; geez this is going to take a lot of time. Sounds like the baby feeds every 1.5 - 2hrs and then they feed for 20-40 minutes. They count the time between feedings from the beginning of the feeding. So then mom gets a break for 30-40 minutes and has to feed again. Not to mention all the diaper changing. Wow, all these these little guys seem to do is eat, poop, and sleep. We'll see how it goes. There was also a very disturbing diagram that went into how far the mother's nipple get stretched down the baby's mouth/throat while eating. My nipples are not that long and I don't know if I ever want them to be! All in all it was a good class though. Can't wait to take our All-About Babies class in a couple weeks.

Also had my 24 week doctor's appt on Monday. We listened to the baby's heartbeat and then I was measured from pubic bone to navel. Apparently the distance from you pubic bone to your navel in centimeters tracks with how many weeks you are pregnant (give or take 2 centimeters). I measured at 25cm. That's odd how that works out, but good to know! We got a lot of literature on pre-term labor and how to monitor your baby's movement. Lyle and I also asked about circumcision since we don't know much about. Ends up only 50-60% of baby boys are circumcised now and most insurance companies consider it a cosmetic surgery so they won't cover the cost of the surgery. We were already both kind of teetering back and forth about whether we wanted to have that done to the little guy and now we've both decided absolutely not!

Last night was the first night that Keegan (baby boy) woke me up in the middle of the night. About 3am he started partying and kept me awake for an hour or so. That incited some grumbling on my part. I told Lyle to tell his son to behave...I got a mumbled response in return.

Anyway, this has been a busy week. I am falling a bit behind on my other homework so I need to get back on top of that. Also we have the Halloween party to prepare for and we'll be playing DND Sat. morning. We spent yesterday night getting all the food for the party and then tonight we put up the Halloween decorations inside and out. Lyle still doesn't know what he's going to be; maybe he's keeping it a surprise ;-) Very happy that tomorrow is Friday! Our company also got its first paycheck last week. That was a relief and kind of exciting.

Hopefully tomorrow things will be calmer at work and maybe I can slip in another post. Until then...

Well I guess I don't use my phone enough

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/24/mobiles_hit_male_fertility/

There is a little article about how mobile phones; if used more than 4 hours per day, will cut down on sperm count. Is this the new form of birth control? I sure hope not ;), don't know who I would talk to for 4 hours a day...

Another weekend gone :(

Weekends really do go way to fast. Overall the weekend was ok, we didn't do very much because Karissa had a lot of home work for Java class, that she found out yesterday wasn't really as bad as she thought it was. I guess that is what happens sometimes when the teacher doesn't really give good instructions. Well, not much to be done about it now.

On the baby front, well a couple of things. First off in-laws bought a glider chair for my better half. It is really a nice one, I put it together last night, and luckily it wasn't hard to put together! We also had the 24 week appointment yesterday, which went about like normal, a lot of waiting, and not a lot of doing. So we sat a fair amount and learned about preterm labor, and got some information circumsision. Exciting stuff let me tell you :). Anyway that is about it for now.

Feeding class

So breast feeding class was last night. It was an interesting class, though it seemed kind of long. We learned all about the holds, benefits, and what to expect. Overall it was pretty good, and I listened enough to make sure that I can remind Karissa of the information if she happens to forget.

There was some fun for me though. They talk about how the baby is suppose to latch and suck. This is just funny to me because it sounds like a leech and not a baby. It is funny to me because Keagan sounds like a parasite for the first 6 months after birth, and athe whole nine months in the womb. Don't get me wrong, I am happy Keagan is coming, and I am excited for him to come out so that I can actually play with him.

I have linked to the picture on the left from our pictures that are online. If you want to see those, you can use the link on the right that says "our pictures". The picture on the left is of Keagan, that we got from the 20 week ultrasound. It is the profile of Keagan, and you can see he looks just like his mom. Same nose and everything ;). I think Keagan has my chin though. I guess we will have to see who he looks more like after he comes out.

Well that is really all for now. I hope that you guys have a great day.

Okay I'm back...

Okay I am back to write a longer entry. I am waiting for some solutions to mix in so it's the perfect time for a break!

Yep, we have "Preparation for breastfeeding" tonight. For 2.5 hrs we get to learn about how to prepare to breastfeed the little boy. I am really not sure what to expect. My "labor companion" is strongly encouraged to attend. It should be good to have Lyle there so that he can remind me what we learned later; and if I need help with something later he can't claim ignorance :-)
Keegan's been moving a lot the last couple weeks. Every now and then he delivers a really good kick; that kind of startles me. I don't think Lyle is used to me yelling at my stomach to "stop it" and "calm down" yet. He (Keegan not Lyle) only moves when I am still. So I run around all day at work and he's very quiet; then when I sit down to eat lunch or drive home it's party time!

I am wondering if people will begin to doubt my sanity as I begin to converse with my stomach
more and more. Supposidely this is supposed to be as good a time as any to start bonding with my abdominal dweller.

So far so good with the pregnancy (knock on wood). I was having a lot of trouble with my hips hurting last week. Then on Sunday my right hip popped out of joint and then went back in (which hurt). Since then though both hips have been pain free, go figure...I am not even going to try and figure out how that helped. It still hasn't helped my speed of movement a whole lot. One of my friends from BSci and I wanted to graph a pregnant woman's speed of movement over time (she was about 7 months pregnant at the time). We are convinced that speed of movement decreases exponentially as the duration of the pregnancy lengthens. Maybe Lyle can help with this; I know when we go and walk Ruby every night he has to substantially decrease his pace. Ruby's good about it though; if Lyle gets too far ahead she stops and looks back at me and refuses to move until I catch up. Good of her to be so concerned ;-)

Not a whole lot else to say. As Lyle said I've been busy with work and school. So, I will try to come on and blog when I get the chance. I am still trying to convince Lyle that we should spell baby's name like Keegan, not Keagan. Keegan looks so much nicer!

This is a Test

I think Lyle invited to me to this blog. I wanted to make sure it would work. I will write something interesting later.

Karissa

Classes.....

Karissa has BreastFeeding class tonight. Which of course means I have breast feeding class tonight. Not sure what exactly I am going to be doing there, but hopefully it will be fun. I just hope they don't try and use me for feeding, I have a feeling it wouldn't work out. I did go to one of the other classes earlier, the Expectant father class. It was pretty good, and very educational. The guy who taught the class had a couple of kids, and talked all about them, and how it changes your life. I am still not sure how much will change but he isn't the only one who has talked about the changes that come from children. Actually I have heard it a lot since we decided to have a child. The latest one being at our 10 year class reunion that we attended VERY breifly this last weekend. We ran into an old friend that talked about how his two kids have made him very happy. I can only hope the same holds true for me.

Other than that not much else going on from my standpoint. Karissa might have more to say about that. I want to try and get her to start posting her thoughts here, but you know she is a little busy right now.

He's coming.....

Keagen.... or maybe named otherwise is coming. That is our Kid to be! As anyone reading this would probably already know this is our first child, and Karissa my wife is about 6 months along right now. Though we have already started the preparations for having Keagen, and started the babies room (our old office.... :( ), we still have a lot to do before his arrival. I will have to post some pictures and all that stuff when I learn how to do that on this piece of software. For now I should get going and try and figure out some other stuff on this site.....